I'm Not Sick Enough
by Keyboardmurderer
Summary: "You have hams for thighs." Matthew Williams never noticed his own body, whether it grew or didn't, he just let it be. But when his brother makes an unfiltered comment about his weight, Matthew is triggered. And he gets so lost in his own sadness, the artist doesn't even notice when he captures the interest of an aspiring storyboard writer. PruCan, Angsty, TW: Depression, E.D., etc
1. Chapter 1

"Your thighs are like hams."

That was the sentence, a sentence that was said in humor by my own brother that started everything leading up to this point.

In high school, I'm not super well-known. I'm most known for being quiet and serene, apparently. My brother's the one with the dynamic personality. Half of the population knows me as "Alfred's brother", and the other half knows me as "who?". It used to annoy me a bit—that I wasn't important enough to be my own person—but it's peaceful now. I'm invisible, but in a good way.

Like a ninja.

But as for Alfred, he was my rowdy and obnoxious half-brother. He never entered a conversation without leaving an impression. He was loud and didn't really have a filter from his head to his mouth,.

I don't really blame him for what he said—besides, he probably didn't know better or thought his comment was irrelevant.

It was my sophomore year in school, and I spent most of my time out of class under the stairs in the corner next to the art room.

It was nice and quiet—I've always appreciated the atmosphere of the art room, and my lunch time was right after fourth period. I usually just walked the fifteen feet from my third period art class with whatever project I was working on and sat in the colorful corner.

Alfred always laughed when he found me under the stairs. "Dude, you look like Harry Potter before Hogwarts—get out from under there!"

I remember the day Alfred said it, because I was just finishing my watercolor commission: a beautiful concept piece of a Japanese-style scenery for a friend, Kiku, who was honestly paying me way too much for something I finished in less than five days. Backgrounds were always my forte considering I usually blended into them, and I was excited to get to do something as challenging as a watercolor background. I figured that the colors melded brilliantly, and I was truly proud of the commission.

I had pulled myself up from where I sat and carefully picked up the painting. The curved roof tiles were still wet with brown water.

The art room's really small in my school, see—Westbank Secondary's a standard "sports before arts" kind of place. In spite of (or perhaps because of) this, the art room is really homey, though. Mr. Roerich's favorite pieces paint the walls with vibrant colors of all shades and saturations; in fact, two of mine hang together above one of the five computers. It's a cramped but cozy niche-like place. Usually if I'm out in the hallway, I'm in the actual room.

So I left the commission on the table next to a ceramics student's dragon tea pot. I admired the piece for a while; the colors blended so well with each other, and as most amazingly "too good" pieces are wont to do, the sculpting of the head made me want to cry.

My phone chimed as I turned to leave, and I checked the usually dormant piece of equipment.

[ Alfred: U coming to lunch? Arthur and I are going to be the table today. ]

It was Alfred. I texted a quick reply.

[ No, I'm not going today—Yao brought some dumplings and said he'd share. ] I never liked to talk in text speak. It usually gave me secondhand embarrassment.

[ Alfred: Btw- can I borrow your xtra pair of jeans? ]

[ Sure. Any reason? ]

[ Alfred: Dumb BF spilled his tea on mine ]

[ Alright, go for it. ]

[ Alfred: oh hey, but would they fit? ]

When I got this message I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows. Alfred and I have been the same size since eighth grade—we even wore the same tux for our parent's wedding. It just fazed me.

[ Yeah… we're the same size. ]

[ Alfred: Still? Bro- no offense, but your thighs r like hams ]

To know my brother Alfred is like knowing twenty different people at once. He's never the same; I'm surprised that Arthur's hung around for this long.

I didn't send another message after that.

I shoved my phone into my pocket and stepped out of the shadowy entrance to the library. I typically spent my lunches in the library if not the art room, and Yao was waiting for me to help him with French.

The fact that my school was bigger than the town's college should tell you a lot about it. It always irritated me that our art room was the size of a mini cooper, considering our gym alone was the width of half a football field, but that's what you get for living in Maryland I suppose.

And yes, Alfred and I measured.

When I stepped into our ironically small library, Yao already had all of his textbooks and his handy dandy legal pad out. He nodded to me when he saw me coming.

"You're late."

I've known Yao since before my father married Alfred's mom. In the past three years, his Chinese accent has slowly begun to fade, but the pronunciation remains a common issue as his first language still lingers in his mind and lips. The boy usually wears his long hair in a ponytail, but his uneven hair always fall into his eyes, forcing him to tuck it behind his ear. Yao's family is a multicultural foster family, so despite him getting a lot of odd looks for it, they encourage him to look however he wants.

He always gets angry when Alfred comments on it, though, so I usually choose to stay quiet when I see it growing out.

I sat down in front of Yao, turning his textbook towards me. French was my second language, but I started learning it at a very young age. My dad was natively French, and when my mother died, he began to teach it to me.

I never understood why, but now I guess it was to distract me from the sadness. Maybe it was to distract himself.

I heard Yao sigh dramatically and looked up to see a frustrated Chinese man with his head in his arms.

I tapped him. "Yao? What's wrong? Is it the feminine pronouns again?"

"I don't understand—why is there such a difference in these words? To me, pronouns should just be gender neutral—otherwise we wouldn't have so much controversy over them!"

"Chinese is a completely different language than French," I soothed, knowing distantly that Chinese didn't have masculine or feminine pronouns in the spoken language. "It's like an English man attempting to learn Finnish. It's hard." Yao's first language was Chinese, so as soon as he asked me for help with French, a required language course, I immediately understood—and because I had finished French the year before (I was given permission to do the classes online, and completed French I through French IIII my freshmen year) I had plenty of knowledge to share.)

Yao's eyes lit up at the end of my sentence. He'd been tapping his finger on the edge of our table but brought his entire hand down on the wooden surface.

I'd never seen how thin his fingers were before then. Or all of him, really.

"Speaking of hard—I made us lunch!" he said brightly, pulling out a large plastic container.

I snorted. "What does that have to do with hard?"

"They're going to be if you don't eat them," he said with a sly look. The Chinese youth opened his Tupperware container of white rice and curried shrimp. Another smaller Tupperware dish sat right beside it, with four soft dumplings lying in perfect order.

The smell rose in invisible puffs and danced on the outer rims of my nostrils as I inhaled the aroma of pork and shrimp. I looked into the container and saw crisp green onions in the curry; the vermillion shrimp sat on top of the rice, and to the side dried mango curled in on itself as the plastic divider kept it from touching the neat main dish.

It was beautiful.

I didn't deserve it.

Underneath the table I grabbed at the flesh at my arms as Yao handed me a fork and separated a share of the meal onto the separate container that held the napkin, fork, and a pair of chopsticks. I watched him place the food evenly, dividing it in two.

My phone burned a hole in my side pocket.

The pocket of the jeans that hid my huge thighs.

"Yao—I'm sorry, but I actually have to go help Arthur really quick—gotta make sure Alfred's okay, too. Can I take a rain check?"

Holding a dumpling to his lips, Yao blinked at me. "At least take food with you. This is too much for one person, seriously."

Wanting not to be anymore rude than I already was, I took the container and the fork, sending a nod of thanks to my friend.

My phone vibrated again, but I was too scared to dig it out of my pocket. What if I hadn't exited out of Alfred's chat box and I saw the message again?

I went straight to the men's room as the bell rang for fifth period, and dumped out the food Yao had given me, feeling immediately guilty as I stared at the red-stained rice and chunks of shrimp, now so different and unappetizing, even as my stomach howled as the aroma found its way to my nose again.

I backed up and looked into the mirror. What I saw was what I had been seeing for my entire life: sandy blond hair met the bottom of my ears and ended abruptly, curling at my nape. Glasses framed an ovular face and hid large, violet eyes. My teeth were straight, and my nose was too. I wasn't ugly.

Then I looked down at my soft stomach and my big shoulders. I looked at my wide hips and big thighs.

I wasn't ugly.

No, I was fat.

It had never come to my attention until now. It was surprising—jarring. I used to be a small kid, and no matter how old I got or how many pancakes I ate, I never changed. Until now. The burning lump of frustration pushed into my neck, and tried to push back the stinging in my eyes but it only made the feeling worse. This wasn't ever something I cared about—so why did it matter now?

My phone vibrated again, and I pulled it out, finding the courage to unlock it.

It was a text from Arthur.

[Please don't take into mind what Alfred said. You know how idiotic he can be.] It was just like Arthur to speak formally in a text message. I continued on reading.

[ Arthur: You look fine, Matthew, it's just the way you were built. ]

The way I was built. Fat.

[ Arthur: Matthew, are you alright? Please don't let this start anything. ]

Oh Arthur, I thought.

Too late.

.

.

.

Without hesitation, as soon as the bell rang, I dashed out of the bathroom. The smell was beginning to take up more than just the stall, no matter the amount of paper towels I stacked on the food.

I shuffled quietly to class as the occasional late person scooted past me. If you really knew me well, you could tell when I was upset of not. I had a give, and I knew it was in the way I carried myself, but only those close to me knew well enough to notice.

I scanned the hallway for the familiar face of a friend, but looked back down when none were to be seen. They were all honor students, and they couldn't bother to be late for someone like me anyway.

I swear I would have burst into tears if the surprise of someone hitting my shoulder didn't knock me out of my numb haze.

"Ahh, shit!" an unfamiliar voice exclaimed as my arm flew back and I tripped on my own two feet. His papers flew around so dramatically you'd think we were in an over-the-top movie where two destined lovers meet—or something cheesy in that context.

"Are you alright?" I looked up to a face I'd never seen before- which was interesting, because I figured I would have seen a white-haired guy in a hallway at some point, no matter how big this school was. I took his offered hand, and felt a pang of guilt as I heard him grunt when he pulled me up.

When I was back on my feet, he looked at me for a while. I was struck by the hue of his eyes: they were an iridescent red, a deep garnet color that I'd like to use for painting.

I didn't say that out loud, though, because that'd probably be creepy.

He just looked at me smiling, like I was the albino he'd seen for the first time this year. Maybe he was mirroring me.

When he was apparently done looking at me, he seemed to have remembered all of the papers that had flown out of his hand.

"Scheiße…" he huffed frustratedly as he bent down to pick up the scraps of paper.

For a moment I stood there in silence, but ass soon as I recovered from the shock I bent down to help him. My short nails struggled to pick up the sheathes against cold tile, and I grimaced until I turned one over. There I paused, half crouching; the pieces of paper were either blank, scrawled with lines, or covered with anatomical figures. Others had fully drawn sketches, some with eyes and fingernails, and one was covered in skin blends. One character, a small older woman with large circular spectacles, smiled up at me, fully colored in rich shades of umber and viridian.

Wow.

I didn't even notice I was holding them out until he grabbed them with a blinding smile.

"Thanks—sorry about that by the way, I wasn't looking where I was going—did I hurt you?"

I couldn't speak. His voice was... nice, for lack of abetter word—not smooth, but not to hoarse or sharp—like the sound of an older instrument: worn down but still melodic.

Wow.

"I'm fine…" I finally managed with a whisper. We honestly just stood there for a good while—just looking at each other. I noticed embarrassedly me how he watched me—with this half-smirk on his face that by now I thought was permanent.

The tension was so thick anyone would crumple up like paper. He finally cut it when he glanced down at his papers and brought a smooth hand up in thanks. "Awesome of you to help me get them—I would have never found them all…" And he had a thick German accent clinging to his every word, too—and I knew from there came the striking staccato of his voice.

"What are they?" I brought myself to ask. My throat closed in on me like someone was stepping on it but only slowly applying pressure.

He deliberated for a moment, as if unsure of how he wanted to phrase his answer. "Storyboards. Like for cartoons and animated novels. Or comics. Comics too. I sort of want to be a story board writer when I'm older. It's something to think about…" He shuffled awkwardly when he spoke, taking his hands out of his pocket, running them through his hair, and putting them back in forcefully, only to repeat the cycle all over again.

"I'm sorry—I didn't even ask for your name…" Here his volume dropped off at the end, though the entire time he'd been explaining he was booming.

"Er—Matthew," I replied stupefied. I hated that even though it was such a simple question, it was so difficult to answer.

"Gilbert," he returned with a smile. "And, uh, thanks again, Matthew."

"Oh, eh, yeah…" I tried to find something to say other than nonsensical grunts. He was surprisingly attractive, I couldn't help but notice. He had hiss thumb hooked to the strap of his silver backpack, and he had nice arms: lean, but still muscled in all the right places. And he had a slouch to him—but the kind that started at the waist and make someone look really laid back, not the ones that left the curled hunches. His hair fell onto his forehead in white tiffs, and his right ear was pierced with an industrial bar in the cartilage.

Basically he was the most attractive boy I'd ever seen.

And he just stood there looking at me with his smile.

I fixed my glasses and pulled my bag from off of the floor, then waited for him to move.

He didn't.

"Well… I have to go to class." I was getting tired of my stupid mumbling, and I tried to hide my blush, bringing my red backpack to my shoulder and bunching up the fabric of my hoodie beneath the weight of it. I hoped to make my escape surreptitiously, but when I started to back away, he turned around, shuffling the papers and putting them back into order.

And he had such a nice smile. "I hope I see you around, Matthew! It was awesome meeting you."

Gilbert walked with a stride, and even today it embarrasses me to think that I watched him walk all the way down that hallway until he was nothing but a silver and black blur. My face was crimson, and I had only just started to feel the heat. I shook my head and went the opposite direction, hanging my head once again.

He wouldn't like a guy with hams for thighs.

~ Hola! I was so tired yesterday I got home at three in the afternoon and went straight to bed. I didn't wake up until six the next day. Because school is coming to an end and I have NO FINALS YAAAAAAAAS I have more time to work on my writing. This idea came to me when I was looking for some seriously breaking mental angst, and there was no abundance on the internet, so I just thought "Maybe a PruCan!" and thus, the first chapter of a story I won't spend nearly as much time absent in as I have been on "Puppet" Thanks again for reading, and I'll have the next chapter up an running ASAP.

If you or a friend suffers from an eating disorder, boy or girl, I'm right here to help, or to just talk to. Please, if anyone ever needs anything, do NOT hesitate to ask. I'm here for all my readers, or even people who don't know who the heckers I am.

With love, Keyboardmurderer~


	2. Chapter 2

By seventh period, I was usually tired.

Because I had already finished French by the time Christmas arrived, I had a free forty-five minutes to myself—which I usually spent in the art classroom or in the library—working or making art, but today my stomach kept me wide awake and hyperaware. Feeling nauseous, I touched up Kiku's commission and texted him to come pick it up.

After that I spent a good ten minutes lying on the couch wishing for the tornado in my stomach to wind down.

Most days no one but the Graphic Design and Technological Media kids entered the art room during seventh period, and those classes together consisted of maybe three people in the school. Yao was in the computer lab next door, so I dropped off his tupperware container and fork after I set my stuff down. He smiled at me.

"Was it good?" he asked, peering up at me with large ochre eyes. Yao took cooking and eatery very seriously; everything had to be perfect for him or else he would just start from scratch. It was a bit of a pain eating at his house, if not because of the time then because he wouldn't eat until I had eaten—and he'd only eat the rejects.

He would probably die if he saw the mess in the garbage bag. Or kill me. Or both.

"It was delicious." I returned his smile, waiting to move until he turned back to his computer.

The thing was, Yao was a good friend. He simply tolerated Alfred, but he genuinely got along with me very well. He must have seen how tired I was and recognized something sad in me because he turned all the way around in his chair and slapped me on the side of my face—just lightly enough not to hurt me but well enough to knock my glasses off of my face.

"What's wrong with you?" He set his tupperware container down so he could bring both hands to his knees. He sat with his feet crossed on his chair, something I always wanted to be able to do but never could. My feet were too big. Too long. I bent down to pick up the bent frames of my glasses and brought them up to my face. I strained pulling myself up. Had I always been this… heavy?

_Too fat._

I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets and crossed them in front of my stomach. "I don't know. I think I'm just out of it today." Yao wasn't buying my crap, I could tell—but he simply looked at me, muttered an "aiyah," and turned back to his program. I felt so guilty—guilty that I didn't tell him what was going on in my mind. Guilty about throwing his precious food away, guilty about how much I envied his small body it was hard to think straight. I walked out of the room and followed the curve to the art room where Kiku was actually waiting for me, hands behind his back as he stood like a porcelain doll in the room.

"Matthew-san," he greeted, meeting me halfway through the room.

Kiku is actually Yao's adopted brother, and came into his large family when Yao, Alfred, and I were half-way through our freshmen year. He's also a year older than me, but looks like he could be a freshman. He wears his hair in a neat cut above his forehead, and always has a solemn expression on his thing face. And in fact, when we were younger and he had a much longer haircut, Alfred had mistaken him for a girl. I was embarrassed for the young Japanese boy, but being as small and lean as he was, I don't think only Alfred would have made the mistake.

We had instantly become friends, and I loved that he admired my artwork.

Despite having lived in America for the past few years, Kiku is always very traditionally Japanese; he uses a lot of honorifics that others wouldn't get, and oftentimes the other students call him a weirdo, but he always ignores them and does whatever he wants. So when Kiku gave me a shallow bow, I wasn't surprised—just mystified that I could see the edges of his spine poke through his collared shirt. He was naturally very thin, and even though I didn't want to compare myself to someone with such dynamically different proportions, the thoughts came anyway.

I hastily bowed back and couldn't stop the rush of negativity: _You could be like that, if you stopped eating._

_You've always liked the idea of being invisible—why not just slowly disappear forever?_

_You deserve the pain._

"Here." I shook my head and grabbed the commission out of my portfolio, unwrapping the stained newspaper that covered the watercolor. Nothing had smudged, thank God, but the edges of each building were still damp.

Honestly I knew I could have done better, put in more effort somehow or brush up on my techniques, but I could tell Kiku appreciated it. He took it from me and stared it for a small while. He always supported my art and me and never failed to commission me when he knew I needed money.

After (hopefully) admiring the watercolor, he set the painting down on a dry-erase surface table and fished out his wallet. When his small hand produced a large fold of cash, however, with neat paper clipped together, I shook my head 'no'.

"I-I can't take that much money, Kiku. It took me honestly f-five, six days to comple—"

"Matthew-san," he said sternly. His accent was much thicker than Yao's, since he'd been here a shorter amount of time. "Please take it. You worked very hard on it, I can see that." He placed the money, more than I'd ever gotten for a piece of artwork, in my hand and wrapped my fingers around the paper.

"I don't know what to say." The words fought to leave my mouth as I tried to understand what was going on. We had never decided on a commission price, and I liked Kiku enough to just let him pay me whatever. I had no idea he liked my work so much…

He merely stood there, staring back at me with a stoic expression until I finally lowered my hand and put the money into my hood pocket.

"You're an artist?"

Kiku looked up before I turned around, but I had already attached the voice to the memory of that white hair.

My heart pounded as I looked back to see the smirking albino from hours before holding onto his backpack strap and raising a thick (well, as thick as a silver eyebrow can get) eyebrow to me, turning to look around the compact art room.

"I only get my work from him," said Kiku from behind me.

"Why didn't you tell me?" the guy, Gilbert, questioned tilting his head. He was looking at me. My stomach clenched, and I could feel my head spinning like a little person in my skull was pacing in the small contents of it.

I stood there helplessly looking back and forth between the two people beside me. Realizing I hadn't said anything, and not knowing what else to say, I finally muttered out, "I talked to you for two minutes."

"Oh, well, when I meet a new person, the first thing I usually say is that I'm in art," He had this ease with speaking to people that made me jealous. I wanted to be him just as much as I wanted to be gone at that moment. "I just usually don't throw my work at them and sweep them off of their feet…" He chuckled, raking his hair with the hand not hooked on the backpack's strap.

I stared stupidly. Again.

"My guess is that you are a new student?" Kiku chimed in politely from behind me. I had forgotten that he was there.

"Transferred in today."

"Made any new friends?" It took a second to realize that the words came from my mouth. My lip was doing the weird tremble thing it did when I was nervous.

"Yeah," Gilbert smiled, as if happy I was still functioning, and my heart did another weird pound. He leaned down to meet my height with his eyes, and it amazed me how naturally his body just bent forward. "My younger brother already goes here, so I have him to sit with in lunch, and there's this awesome guy, Antonio, in my Spanish class."

"Who is your brother?" Kiku asked him, circling from behind me to stand at my side, still holding the watercolor commission. I silently begged him to turn it around.

"Uh—Ludwig," He turned to face Kiku, giving me a chance to breathe. "Ludwig Beilschmidt."

"And your name is?"

"Gilbert Beilschmidt." He stated proudly, tilting his head up and smiling down at Kiku, who nodded and shook his hand. The Japanese boy turned back to me once both of his hands dropped. "Tell me when I am able to commission once more." Kiku bowed to me, then exited.

There was a moment of silence in the lull after Kiku's absence before the other teen began, "Hey, if you're doing commissions, I might have a job for you." Gilbert set down his backpack and pulled out his phone, unlocking it and tapping on an icon as I trembled slightly.

His fingers were long and lean, and they danced on the screen clumsily, but like a child taking their first steps. It was beautiful anyway.

Wow. I'm a creep.

The picture on the screen was of a really beautiful girl, with big spearmint eyes and russet curls that brushed at the edges of her face like smooth caramel melting down onto her white blouse. She had a blooming rose in her hair that unfurled to just the right number of spirals—and it sat perched on her right ear, a look I knew very few people could pull off.

"This is my friend," he said, smiling down at the picture of the girl. I stared at the girl, but I could feel the warmth radiating from his expression and softening his voice.

_Oh._

I looked over to her contact information: 'Elizaveta E.' with a small thumbs-up emoji next to her icon.

"Her birthday's coming up," Gilbert started, grinning at me, "and she won't let me get her anything really big or expensive. If you did that painting for that one dude, do you think you can do something with this?" Gilbert held up the phone so I could get a better look of the photo. It looked professionally taken, the light hitting her olive skin perfectly making her eyes even brighter than they already were. Her thin shoulder came up to hide her shy smile. No skin collected under her chin, and I didn't even notice I was picking at my own until the pinching snapped me out of my trance.

It physically hurt how pretty she was.

It also sort of hurt to see Gilbert smiling down on her like that, considering he had just been smiling at me.

"I was hoping you could do like, a small watercolor print like the one that guy had, or maybe something with charcoal?" he requested curiously, the phone still in front of my face. I could tell he was used to digital art, because the words left his mouth carefully, as if he was going to say something wrong and earn a laugh from me.

As if I would laugh at him.

I swallowed the big lump in my throat and looked up at Gilbert. He was staring back easily, his eyes so red they could have been painted on, and not with runny and soft watercolor, but with shimmering, impenetrable oil. His eyebrows rose slightly, waiting for my answer.

I reluctantly looked back at the picture of the beautiful, small girl. Her features were too soft for an oil painting, and acrylic would be hard to blend. Charcoal wouldn't capture all of her vibrancy, which was basically 50% of her huge, spring-green eyes.

"I think watercolor would be better; I wouldn't be able to replicate the green with charcoal," I finally admitted. "Can you print out the photo and give it to me tomorrow?" Not wanting him to see my face I walked out then, moving toward the lockers and empty halls while trying to keep the dumb sadness out of my voice. He followed me, easily keeping pace with my strides.

"That would be awesome! I have to mail it to her she lives really far right now…"

I didn't know what else to do other than nod, so I did just that and tightened my hold on the strap of my backpack as I kept walking.

"I'll have to print out the picture and give it to you another time. …Or, if you'd give me your number, I could just send it to you right now," he added cautiously, hopefully.

"Oh…" I stopped, slowly turning around. Nonchalantly he handed his phone to me and I tried to grab it without touching him, but our fingers brushed against each other and for a moment there was exhilaration, then a pang of guilt. Trying to remember how to breathe I typed in my full name, inputted my phone number, and handed it back to Gilbert, hoping he didn't notice my shaking hands.

He did.

"You alright? You don't really look that awesome…" He bent down and examined my face, making it even redder as I grew flustered, the man pacing in my head now pacing in my heart.

"And you're red, too. Good thing it's almost time to get home, hopefully you'll be looking awesome again by tomorrow!"

Hopelessly trying to keep my face from spontaneously combusting, I looked at my feet. Did he always say awesome? It was a bit endearing.

"Oh, uh, yeah."

…Did I really say that out loud?

"S-Sorry!" I felt my lips wobble mortified, and tried to cover my flaming cheeks. But he didn't seem offended—amused, maybe—and actually smiled at me again. His canine teeth were sharp, and the right one jutted out a little when he grinned. His half-smirk seemed to favor his right side.

"I'll send the picture to you right now, and I'll text you to see how it's going tomorrow, alright?" he proposed, walking backwards to his destination. Just then, the bell rang dismissing the mass of students for the day.

"…Alright." I was pretty sure he didn't hear me, because by that time kids filed out of classrooms in huge clusters of color.

My hands found their way into my pockets, and my right hand curled around the money Kiku had handed me.

My left one curled around a piece of my skin, and poked at it through the fabric of my hood and shirt, pulling it and feeling it snap back into its place on my stomach.

As I walked to the buses, thoughts jumbled in my head; the little man was pacing in it again. On my regular bus sat Alfred, Arthur, and a sweet Ukrainian girl that sat with me every once in a while, but I never asked for her name. Yao usually went home with Kiku in his car, and everyone else seemed to have siblings older than them for rides.

"Hey, bro!" I could hear my stepbrother from the back of the bus, and wasn't surprised when I saw poor Arthur in tow. "Guess what happened today?"

"Hmm?" I half-heartedly hummed, sketching an outline for a profile in my sketchbook. I could feel Alfred's smile radiating as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Arthur grab his hand.

I looked up to meet my grinning brother's eyes, and he practically screamed, "We won the away game! Who's proud of their bro?" I laughed as he dramatically brought his hand up to his ear, anticipating a response. I sighed, and answer with his name. Just like every time he won a game.

"How was your day, Matthew?" Arthur was always really considerate of my feelings, and though he was smitten with my brother, he could tell that Alfred had faults and tried his best to keep me from feeling small.

I liked him a lot, for Alfred.

"Kiku paid me for a commission, and I actually got another one this afternoon."

"Really? From who?"

"A new student. Er, Ludwig Beilschmidt's brother."

"Gilbert? He transferred back?" Arthur was leaning forward in his seat now, a thick blonde eyebrow raised up in curiosity.

"Yeah, you know him?" I was leaning forward too, trying to get closer to my newest source of information.

"I went to middle school with the git," he said sourly, if a bit fondly. "His father got a transfer, I believe, and Gilbert went to study with him. It was somewhere in Europe—Hungary, I think."

"Wow." I wonder how that worked out. Did Ludwig stay with his mom as Gilbert traveled with his dad? Did their parents separate? How much catching up did they have to do?

"I always kinda had a crush on the lad…"

Wait. What?

Alfred's big cerulean eyes almost bugged out at his boyfriend, and his hand shot back in shock.

So I had heard him correctly, right?

"What?!" Arthur exclaimed defensively. "He's not hideous, and I was young." He crossed his now free arm over his thin chest. Arthur was so much smaller than Alfred and I…

"What made you stop liking him?" I asked, half hoping he wouldn't hear me.

He did. "I don't know. I knew he had no preference to gender, but I never had the courage to tell him. He moved away before I could."

"Don't worry," he assured Alfred, turning his head to peer up at his boyfriend. "That was years ago!" He grabbed the jock's hand again, and sat back into the leather seat.

Don't get me wrong—I fully supported my brother and Arthur, but it was difficult not to feel jealous of their relationship. Both of them just complemented each other so well even for polar opposites that it was kind of hard not to be envious of them even when they argued over something as stupid as whether coffee or tea was better.

Then I caught on to something Arthur said.

"Wait." I held up my hand to grab the Brit's attention, since my voice carried just as far as a mouse could squeak.

"Gilbert's bi?"

Arthur chuckled and nodded. "From what I know."

Oh.

I turned back in my seat, leaving Alfred alone with Arthur. My bad habit of slouching had me almost disappearing in the red leather. My stomach stopped arguing for a moment, something that I silently thanked.

Arthur's stop was the one directly before ours, and I couldn't help but watch as Alfred didn't even have to scoot back too much for the thin boy to just slide out into the isle. I observed his retreating figure, not even realizing Alfred was tapping my shoulder.

"Hey, dude." He motioned down to his pants—the jeans he had asked to borrow. "They fit. Thanks."

I looked down at the blue denim. Alfred sat with his legs opened, the fabric bunching at the edges of his thigh and outlining his skin. I poked the outline.

They fit, but just barely.

As soon as Alfred opened the door, I went straight to bed. I could tell Alfred was confused; I usually went right to the kitchen to fire up the stove for pancakes.

"You okay?" he asked tentatively, walking into my room. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him standing at my door frame, leaning on his right arm.

I shot him a "thumbs up" sign, and waited for him to leave before rolling back onto my stomach. My bed, usually covered in paper or pencils, creaked under my weight as I stood up and walked to my window. Becoming hyperaware of everything I did, I shuddered as I pulled the money out of my hoodie. The money Kiku had paid me.

Scanning the contents of my room I noticed nothing much more than a bed, a dresser, a desk, and some art supplies scattered around. Because our house was moderate-sized, and Alfred and I were the only two kids, I had a thankfully decent room.

But now the empty space taunted me, and I fished out my laptop from my backpack.

A nice treadmill could probably fit in here.

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.

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~Hi! Is it just me, or when you start writing a new story, you just become super obsessed, of in Matthew's words, "hyperaware" of it? Anyway, my friend- senpai- offered to beta me, and to be completely frank I was super grateful. She did an excellent job! I'm really enjoying writing this, and I love the fact that I've already received some reviews for this story!

When I write for Matthew, it's hard to imagine I know a lot about mental disorders and eating issues- I'm really talkative and dynamic, so you wouldn't really guess I would. Even though I think I know the situation well, if anyone has any tips to help me write his descent into the eating disorder that would be awesome. I'm also very open to constructive criticism.

If you or a friend suffers from an eating disorder, feel free to privately message me. It's a serious mental issue, and while I'm writing this story, I beg of you not to think I'm romanticizing a SERIOUS ISSUE in its contents.

Thank you so much for reading and supporting me. Message, review, or critic me if you have any questions or ideas!

With love (Seriously. Find me on tumblr or message me if you need to talk to someone who you feel won't push or judge.)

-KeyboardMurderer


	3. Chapter 3

I'm the type of kid that you would see wear his hoodie in warm weather.

Before, it was just because I liked it—the jacket's red and white, and I distressed it myself with bleach. I'd worn it at the time because of how cold I was getting throughout the day, but now I wear it because it's reassuring. Did you ever have a comfort blanket as a kid? My hoodie makes me feel safe.

It had been four days since I had gotten my treadmill, and it stood in the very middle of my room where Alfred and I had set it up. Slowly but surely, I was getting better at running, going longer distances and tiring out less often.

It was funny, because I figured that with the less food I was eating, the harder it could be to run. I just felt lighter.

Spring was creeping up and the weather was getting much, much warmer, but my body seemed not to grasp the concept of "warm" very well. I shivered constantly, at every brush of wind.

I had been on my diet for a week in a half.

I read a lot about how when you began a new regime, it was really hard to do the first few weeks, because of withdrawal. I figured my tiredness and hunger were just the symptoms. Every day before school, I woke up an hour early to jog at least two miles. Sometimes, though, I would be so tired that I couldn't even walk one.

Oh well, the pounds were coming off—and my jeans were looser than before.

The only bad thing about this, honestly, was how cold I was. Was this another withdrawal symptom?

Possibly, but it was a fair price to pay for my weight.

Because it was so early in March, jeans and long sleeves were still in season, so I still had a few weeks to hide my body.

That day, I ate a handful of grapes for breakfast, and I waited to have lunch when I got home at exactly 5:00. I immediately regretted my breakfast though, when my knees hit each other as I walked to my locker. I felt the skin on them rubbing through the jeans, and wondered how it was that people liked me. That I had friends.

But it was okay; grapes were healthy and they filled you up. Grapes were green, and green meant, "go." Grapes had a lot of water in them, too, so they were good for your heart. Grapes were low in calories.

Grapes were safe.

I pulled out a bag of mints I had on hand in case I got hungry before it was the time I would let myself eat. I popped one in my mouth, and the red stripes melted in my hot mouth. Sixth period, AP European History, had just ended. We had discussed the Irish potato famine in great detail, and I was glad to get out of the room full of paintings of black and white Irish residents, stick-thin with eyes bulging out of their sunken-in sockets. It nauseated me, and I felt like throwing up the empty space in my stomach.

Because I had no seventh period anymore, I usually just waited in the men's restroom until the business of the hallways died down to head to art. I had to finish the painting of the girl, considering I had been spending two weeks on a print the size of a computer sheet of paper.

But I wanted it to be perfect, and I wanted to do the girl, Elizaveta, justice. Her hair was giving me grief, and I had finally finished the amber waves. She was 90% done, and all I had needed to finish was the toning and shading. Hopefully I remembered the mixture for her skin tone…

I just wanted it to be nice for Gilbert's friend. And Gilbert.

When I got to the little room, I was sort of shocked to find him sitting in front of a large table, black pen in his mouth and face twisted into an expression of pure concentration. Or frustration.

He saw me before I could turn around, though—and quickly turned back to his work, finishing off whatever he was sketching and taking the pen out of his mouth. Ruffling his white hair (I figured it was a nervous tick, like my stuttering) he stood up and placed is hands in the pockets of his gray jeans. He always seemed to be wearing dark colors.

"Hi," he greeted, turning back to his table with a nervous expression. "How's the commission coming along?"

He was worried about the commission. My heart sank, along with the idea that he had simply wanted to talk.

"I'm almost done," I replied, turning to my portfolio quickly and pulling out the newspaper-wrapped square of thick paper. Oh well. Ever since my diet started, I'd begun to notice my lack of motivation. Patience—something I never lacked an abundance of—slowly oozed from my essence.

"Did we ever decide on a price?"

"Not really." I took my sweet time revealing the commission to the anticipating artist. When I had it unwrapped, he immediately smiled. My heart had been doing this weird thing where it skipped a beat now and then, but I could tell that this one had come from the smile. The smile that wasn't really meant for me.

But, it _was_ my work. That counted, right?

"It's perfect—she'll love it." He motioned for me to hand him the portrait. The more I talked to Gilbert, the more I picked upon his slight accent- the way he pronounced words with "r's" and the way certain phrases just seemed so awkward. Well, awkward wasn't the word for it; it was more like the way they stood out in his sentences. We had run into each other a few times each week in the hallways (I was always either early or late to class, so it was surprising, nonetheless) and he never _didn't_ say "hi", or at least wave. I was growing to dislike him, in all honesty—not because of annoyance or actual hatred, but because he made it impossible _not_ to want to never talk to him again.

It was obvious I liked him, so why didn't he just ignore me like all the other guys did after finding out?

"How much will you want for this, though? You name the price." Gilbert brought me back to attention just in time to register the slight "Z" sound he made when saying "this." He held the picture gently in his long fingers, as if it was precious. I wanted to tell him it was okay to hold it normally- it was dry and everything- but he just made it look so… valuable. It seemed safe in his hands, and I trusted him, for some reason instantly, as much as I trusted Kiku with my work. He liked it. He'd take care of it.

"It's a small print, but it did take me a lot of effort." I had decided to go all out on the portrait, that much was true—I even did my best to blend, using the water-and-sugar base trick so the colors would look more vibrant and coalesce more than I had ever done so before. The labor was definitely going to show up on the pay.

"Here." Without warning, he set down Elizaveta (I named the portrait 'Hungary', where Gilbert had told me she lived. Pretty far, huh?) and pulled out his wallet. "For helping me be a good boyfriend." In his hand, he held out what looked to be the same amount of money Kiku had given me weeks before. But the words he had said leading up to the money made it seem irrelevant.

Assuming was one thing. Actually _knowing_, having the knowledge and proof and fact thrown into your face made me noticeably cringe.

Bisexual of not, Gilbert was taken. By this beautiful girl. And here I was, helping him please her.

"Just keep it." I turned around as soon as the words had left my mouth, but not fast enough to miss the smile fall from Gilbert's face.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine." I might have turned around a little too fast, because my body took a bit too long to catch up with my mind, and I found myself stumbling the first few steps out of the art room.

"Woah, you do _not_ look fine." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gilbert grab "Hungary" with one hand, and didn't even feel him as he put his other hand on my shoulder. "Look, let me drive you home. It might not be okay for you to be riding the bus with a head like that. You look kinda thin too…" He turned me around and examined me up and down.

"I'm okay, Gilbert. I just need some rest." My head hurt; I probably just needed some sleep.

"You can get some rest in my car," he declared no-nonsensely. The tension in the room noticeably dissipated as his smile grew on his face. I wanted to be mad at him- be so mad at him I could just go home and lie down to slumber and not think about him ever again.

He slid his hand down my shoulder and grabbed my arm, pulling me with him out of the door. It was hard to process what had happened- mostly because my head stayed in the Art room for the first five minutes- but by the time it had caught up we were almost to the front entrance of the school.

"We can't leave early," I protested, finding the strength in my legs to bring us both to a halt.

"I can—off campus. And you didn't seem so busy in there either. Let's go."

I didn't budge.

"Gilbert, I'm not a senior." Only seniors had the last period off, and even then it was only those who had finished all of their courses for the year.

He winked, and I inwardly groaned when I felt my heart skip a beat. "So?"

He was pulling me out the door when the office lady saw us and called for us to freeze.

"Where are you going, Mr. Beilschmidt?" He cringed as she mispronounced it, tensing visibly and tightening his hold on me.

"Off-campus." The stoic woman tapped her foot, but didn't seem to find any reason to keep him from exiting, so she stepped aside.

She didn't even see me.

"How come you never went off campus before?" I asked as we approached his car and he let me go to dig for his keys.

"I was usually illustrating." He never said 'drawing' which I found really interesting. "I never needed to. And Ludwig preferred the ride, anyway."

"Must be nice," I thought aloud. "To have someone to lean on for comfort."

Something in that thought made Gilbert raise an eyebrow, but he said nothing as he climbed into his now unlocked car. I followed suit.

"Matthew, you look kinda thin…" he tried again as I ducked my head into his low car.

_Thanks_, I thought.

_Not thin enough_, said the voice in my head.

.

.

.

I really didn't want to be in there—with Gilbert, in his car.

He drove hunched over- eyes on the road and focused. Both of his hands were on the wheel, and he only ever took his eyes off of the lined yellow road in front of us when we were at a stop light, where he decided to chat.

"Do you feel okay?"

"I'm fine," I always responded dismissively. I held my head in the palms of my hands, and stared out of the window trying my best not to look at him. _He isn't available for me to look at._

"Tell me about your girlfriend." I suddenly prompted, surprising myself by my forwardness. It was strange how the things I had been doing the last few weeks—running, being impatient, being more forward, etc.—were just so… out of character for me. Alfred had noticed too, when I had declined making him pancakes the weekend before. ("Bro—come on, I work off all the calories anyway!")

Gilbert was surprised, too.

"Ahh—well, we're not really… 'dating', per se, anymore. It's complicated." He explained this with a smile—an awkward one, but it was, to say the least, a smile—and I urged him on with a patient expression. "She told me that distance wasn't really her forte, and that we should try to make it work, but not be surprised if we each met other people… So it's more like friends with not-so-many benefits…"

"Do you like her?"

"Absolutely. More than I like a lot of things…"

"Like what?"

"Well," Gilbert sat back in his seat for the first time in the entire car ride. He still had a smile on his face, but this time it was while he stared at me, chuckling at my rapid-fire questions. "I like her more than I like illustrating. And I like that a lot—I've been doing it for years…"

"Oh." I didn't mean to sound noncommittal, but even as I silently cringed inward at my aloofness, the passiveness kept coming; I sat back and looked straight ahead again, this time crossing both my hands over my chest, hiding it as I sat back.

"I like her almost as much as I love my brother," he continued, but this time there was a softness in his tone, and I took note when he exchanged 'like' for 'love' in favor of Ludwig. "Liz was like his replacement when I was in that part of Europe- except she was less like a wall and more like an actual human, haha." He ruffled his hair with his right hand and brought it back to the wheel, opposite to his left.

"I just hope that even if we never work out- even if aren't ready for the long distance stuff—we can still be friends."

"I hope you can too," I said softly, not really thinking about what I was saying. At some point, somewhere, I had stopped facing forward, and instead began leaned into Gilbert like his words were my lifeline. If he had noticed, he didn't mind, because the smile on his face shrank—but no was no less bright—into a small thankful grin.

I directed him to my and Alfred's home (''Damn- _that's_ where you live?!'') and as soon as I stepped out of the car, he followed suit.

"I kinda need to use your bathroom… is that okay?" Though the German—East German, he had told me in the car—teen didn't seem to be crossing his legs or about to pee his jeans, I let him in. As soon as the bathroom door had been shut I texted Alfred, who should have been on the bus by then.

[ Alfred: where r you, man?! arthur has been worried sick… ]

My stepbrother answered almost automatically, and I could tell that it was he who had been worried. Arthur probably didn't really even care about me, anyway.

[ I felt a bit sick. Someone drove me home early. ]

[ Alfred: did any1 see you leaving school? ]

[ I was invisible. ] I texted, and echoed the thought aloud as I stood in the kitchen, flipping a water bottle in my hand. When it fell on the floor I made to break the paused that had crept into the conversation, but jolted as my ringtone played. It was Alfred.

"Hey, I'm fine. Just come home normally," I said uneasily, bending over the pick up the wet plastic and sticking it on the counter.

"Actually, Arthur invited me to come eat dinner with his family… I think it's finally the day," he said solemnly. His tone caused me to stop for a moment and just listen to him speak. Arthur and my brother have been secretly dating for almost a year, and his family—Arthur has four older brothers, and lived with his mother—aren't very fond of anything they didn't quite agree with. His mother's a saint, it's his brothers he's probably worried about belittling him…

"Oh, well—alright, then. Have fun over there."

"Hey, I _was_ going to tell you on the bus, but _apparently_ you got a ride home…" There was a faint anger in his voice—anger that at the time I thought to be directed at me, not because of my absence worrying him—and I felt like shrinking into the corners of the kitchen counter.

"…Bye, Alfred." I said numbly, trying to hide the hurt in my voice. Should I have apologized? But before I could say anything else, he hung up and I was left with silence.

I immediately felt like shit; why hadn't I stayed to keep them company on the bus? I should have at least stopped by Alfred's last period to tell him I was leaving with a friend.

I clenched my jaw and felt my hands ball up into fists. I was angry at myself for not being perfect. I _needed_ to be perfect.

Gilbert walked into the kitchen finding me leaning on the counter, my hands in my pockets and my unwashed hair hiding my eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked for what seemed like the nth time that day.

I sagged; I was too tired to argue anymore. "I'm just kinda tired. Like, the emotional kind."

"Matthew, you look really worn down—have you been sleeping?"

"Yeah…" It wasn't a full-out lie, I had been trying to sleep, but often woke up shaking or sweating, or even from a bad dream.

"Have you been eating?"

"Yes." The dismissive tone was back again, and I noticed, for the first time, that I was in my kitchen.

Gilbert noticed too, and immediately went into my fridge.

He pulled out a jug of water and two of the pizza slices from the box Alfred had ordered after I refused to make anything for dinner.

"You look thin. I've noticed you kinda lost a little bit of weight lately. Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine," I repeated, and looked away from the pizza. It made me feel squeamish.

"Then eat something. I never even see you during lunch."

Damn, it was true- I purposely avoided the cafeteria like the plague, but I figured no one even saw me anyway. I felt like crying, but grabbed the slice of cheese pizza from the counter and ripped off the corner of the crust, sticking it into my mouth and chewing the bread slowly, never breaking eye contact with Gilbert. I counted fifteen chews and swallowed the bread, repeating the process again until the two slices were gone.

.

.

.

I don't know what made him stay; maybe he thought the pizza was going to magically disappear from the inside of my stomach, or that I was going to throw it up as soon as he left, but he actually stayed until dinnertime, when Ludwig called and summoned him back home.

As soon as he left, I started crying. What had I done? I had ruined the entire diet. I was pitiful. Tearing at my hair, I curled into a small ball on the couch were he left me. My entire body itched, and I scratched and I scratched and I scratched, but it wouldn't stop.

I heard the lock from outside jiggle, and I ran upstairs, locking myself in the bathroom.

I wanted to die. The pizza sat in my stomach, and no matter how much I tried I couldn't make it come out. I sat in my bath tub, hating Alfred and Gilbert and myself. My skin kept itching and the tears wouldn't stop.

Then I saw the razor—a razor Alfred had bought me almost a full year ago—that I had removed from its box but never used. Without thinking, I brought it down on my hip, and when I looked back down, a ribbon of beautiful red danced its way onto the white ceramic bathtub. It was like the red of Gilbert's damned perfect eyes.

The sounds of my brother frantically knocking on my door were irrelevant.

"Matthew. Matt—I'm sorry I was mean to you today. Are you alright?" Alfred called from outside the bathroom.

I turned on the hot water and waited for the smoking liquid to reach my searing skin before holding back a cringe and answering.

"I'm fine. I'm doing a lot better now," I answered, not even waiting for a reply before dipping my entire head down under and drowning in the silence that remained.

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~Wow. That was actually really difficult to write, so I hope it's satisfactory to you all… I'm honestly really _really_ trying to play this Depressed!Matthew correctly, as madness does change a character completely- altering mood, personality, even appearance. It also leads to eating disorders.

I know that Canada himself is a really sweet boy, but please recognize that mental illness can make anyone act ooc, and I'm trying to make this story as good as it can be. I got up and showered then went straight to work. The positive messages and reviews I've received not only motivate me but make me so happy to reach such an awesome audience!

I've said it before and I'll say it again- if you or a friend suffers from a mental illness, I'm right here to talk to, or to just vent to. I know how much one can hurt, and it's never too late to ask for help. Or to open up.

Thanks you guys,

KeyboardMurderer.~


	4. Chapter 4

Today I was too tired to even think about leaving my bed.

Alfred had walked into my room with his plate of toaster waffles around six thirty to make sure I was getting ready for school—I was a burden like that—and seemed surprised to see me lying on my bed motionless with my arm draped over my face.

"You feeling okay, bro?" his voice radiated timidity.

"I'm fine," I intoned. The phrase had become so familiar to me that it seemed to leave my mouth automatically—like I was an automaton programmed with one response.

I removed my arm from in front of my face and peered at my step brother and gave him a strained smile. His hand curled around a yellow waffle, which dripped slowly with artificial, saccharine maple syrup. His blonde eyebrows were raised so high his forehead looked like it had shrunk.

"Are you sick?" Alfred made a move to enter my room, but I didn't want his waffles or the maple syrup anywhere near me so I sat up in my bed and held out my hand to him.

"I, uh, I just feel a bit sick. I think I'm running a fever." I sniffled to justify my claim. "…I think I'll stay home today, Al."

"I'll get your homework for you, then… Do you need to turn in anything, though?" Alfred had never sounded so concerned for me, even when I was sick in the past. I guess the way I was acting was throwing him off because even when I had broken my arm in the eighth grade I had gone to school the day after in fear of missing an important assignment. I was never one to complain, and Alfred knew that.

His genuine concern made me feel even worse.

But instead of pitying myself more so, I shuffled out of bed, dragging the comforter with me and collecting the scattered homework that littered my room. Lately it had taken a lot to just get out of bed without stumbling on my way up—and I tried to hide the way my pelvic bones were starting to protrude just the smallest bit by pulling up my ever-growing pair of sweats higher onto my hips. I handed the papers to my brother and waited for the front door's ever-loud lock to turn before sliding gingerly into my covers.

Everything hurt—the insides of my thighs hurt from the running, and my hips hurt from the razors, which found themselves on the outlines of my bones every night over and over again. My arms hurt from just dangling at my sides. Even my hair seemed to hurt, as if that was humanly impossible.

Everything. Hurt.

I stayed in bed for a good hour; the weird way my heart was beating kept me from lying back down, so I just pulled my laptop over by the cord and dragged out my drawing tablet.

I've never been a huge fan of digital art, not because it isn't _art,_ but because I can barely keep up with all the new innovations and settings and layers that digital art has to offer. I'd rather stick to my pens and paints, but Yao and Kiku insisted once that I expanded my abilities ("It's better for you; there are more commissions that way, Matthew-san.").

And so I had bought one with the treadmill, and since it didn't seem like I would be getting up from my bed today, I opened my newest Photoshop project and turned on my pen.

I was a stalker. I embraced this—fully accepted the fact that a crush had seemingly snowballed into an all-out infatuation pandemic. I sighed in frustration with myself as I filled in the base colors of the pale albino who, when I finished, would be staring into space, chin in his hands and pencil poised in thin fingers—just the way I had seen him two weeks before when I should have been finishing my end-of-term project.

It was also that day, two weeks earlier, that I had decided he was beautiful.

And that I would never be worthy of any of him.

My hand shook as I traced the reds and grays, highlighting and blending and saturating and so on and so forth. The picture hadn't really inherited all too much effort to begin with; it was more of a side-project I that worked on every other day when I wanted to relax. I never forgot the picture, though: it stayed at the back of my mind all day like oil against an empty bowl. It lingered and never left, and despite the skeleton sketch on my screen I could see the full portrait in my head as vibrant as a Maryland sunset.

I drew for what felt like minutes, but turned out to be hours. The only reason I even halted my drawing was because I heard a faint chime from my phone, the thing sitting at my drawer a good ten feet away.

After debating with myself for maybe two minutes about getting up, a second chime resulted in an affirmative vote and I pulled back my covers, taking my tablet with me.

It was a text message from Gilbert.

[ Gilbert: You've gone missing. I'm all alone in art ] There was another ping. [ Do you want me to look even more like a loner? ]

I shot back a quick response, took my phone with me back to bed, and crawled into the covers again, in the process of which inhuman noises were being made.

Fuck him for texting me. Fuck him for being so… Likeable.

Fuck him for everything—fuck him for making me want to fuck him.

[ I'm sick—sorry. ]

[ Gilbert: Really? Not surprised. ]

[ ? ]

[ Gilbert: You haven't been looking so well lately, tbh. Kinda thinner. And paler. ]

I locked my phone in frustration, not even realizing how heavily I had been breathing. I forcibly evened out my breaths and started to type in a response, but was interrupted by another chime.

[ Gilbert: Hey, want me to come over? I have lunch off campus today. I could just head there now. ]

It caught me by surprise how quick he was to invite himself over—and how much time had passed since seven in the morning. Now it was almost fifteen past noon.

I wanted Gilbert to come over; I wanted to talk to him and watch a movie with him. I also wanted to never see him again, and to throw my paints and brushes or whatever was in my hands at the walls during the times when we were together. I never wanted to so strongly grab a hold of someone's wrist and their hand _at the same time._

But being with Gilbert meant I would have to eat.

My stomach protested its own emptiness the moment I thought of food—like it was scolding me for my impure, gluttonous thoughts.

But then again, the reason I was probably in that state was because I hadn't eaten anything for lunch, nor dinner the night before. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that food was also fuel.

But put too much fuel into a vehicle, and you'll burn it out. I would have to be careful.

I typed in [ Sure. ] and didn't even bother to get dressed—might as well look the part of a sick person.

.

.

.

Gilbert showed up about fifteen minutes after he had texted me back.

I must have taken a long time to answer the door, because the boy kept knocking until I pulled open the large front door to my house, an expression of both frustration and pain on my face.

"You look like Scheiße."

I chuckled at his open use of German. "I feel like it, too. Come in." I tugged the blanket tighter around my body like it was a soft red shell or a protective armor, and turned back into the house.

I decided my room was too messy for me to lead him up into and I didn't want to walk any more than I had to, and thus collapsed on the couch. He imitated me, sighing aggressively into a chair.

Funny.

He draped his legs, though, differently than I did, leaning towards his left and crossing his legs in a perfect figure four. I knew I was probably watching him really close, though, to know all the details and angles- but It was like I was transfixed by his simple way of… _being,_

"So what did the doc say?" he questioned curiously, leaning even farther back into his seat and lifting a silver eyebrow.

"Nothing. I, uh, didn't go to the doctor." My teeth chattered, and I spoke softly—not that that was any different from usual—but I tried my best to hide the chattering and brought the blanket even higher around me like a barricade. It felt like I was defending my homeland, my vessel, from Gilbert. In a way, I guess I kinda was.

"Matt, that should have been the first thing you did," he said chidingly, worriedly. "Christ, you look uncomfortable."

_I am,_ I thought,_ you're making me extremely uncomfortable._

Maybe _I_ was making him uncomfortable. I brought the blanket to my neck.

"I'm making coffee," he said, or rather stated. He got up like it was his own house; his own coffee. My eyes only followed him, and my mind processed the situation just in time for me to reply.

"I'd rather have tea."

This earned an amused snort from the coffee-raider who now lurked in the kitchen and set a bag of ground espresso roast and a tin of one of my tea leaves down on the island.

For a while, I just closed my eyes and listened to Gilbert's white noise: the coffee machine turning on and heating the water, the kettle screeching gradually louder alerting its readiness, footsteps and footsteps and more footsteps, and when I opened my eyes a mug of amber liquid hovered directly in front of my face.

"I picked whatever one I saw first, and I got the red cup because I have this hunch that you really like red, so here." Gilbert flippantly backed into his own seat as soon as the cup, a Canadian maple leaf blotting the scarlet with pure white, settled itself in my hands and rose to my mouth.

The heat was pleasant and the taste was even better. It was fragrant but also really calming. I recognized it as my seldom-used chamomile. Suddenly I felt the warm lingering of sweetness sink into my tongue, and I abruptly yanked the mug away from my face.

"Is it too hot?" Gilbert's lifted from his chair, poised to take the drink from me.

"D-Did you put anything in to sweeten it?" My left hand covered my mouth, and the blanket slowly dropped from my shoulders, temporarily forgotten.

"My brother always puts honey in mine when I'm sick… so I found some and put a teaspoon in… Are you allergic?"

_I don't like honey._

_Yes, I'm allergic._

_I break out in hives if I have honey._

_I was attacked by bees when I was little._

Excuse after excuse poured into my mind, and the longer I took to react, the more anxious, or uneasy, I could tell I was making the mood.

I had to calm down; a teaspoon of honey was only twenty calories. I hadn't eaten anything for the day, so twenty calories could be my breakfast. The honey was my breakfast.

I sipped on.

"No, no—I just never thought to use honey in tea. I usually just drink it plain."

.

.

.

"That's a lie- don't try to tell me you've never stolen from anywhere before!"

Gilbert grinned sharply and leaned into the back of the chair he resided in, his third cup of coffee finished, the mug on the floor to the side of the chair forgotten in its emptiness. He sat with his legs spread and his arms over the top—the same way male models did.

"I really, really haven't." I wasn't even been keeping track of the time; lunch hour had long since passed, and I figured Alfred had decided to do something with Arthur since he wasn't home yet.

Talking to Gilbert was like trying to fire a long gun blindly: one never knew what direction the conversation would end up in.

Every topic was a narrow turn: the one before this was about eagles and whether I thought they were more of a powerful symbol than a lion (an answer of which I couldn't even decide on), and before that, it was an argument about energy drinks—he thought half a bottle of Five Hour Energy would give you half-assed energy for five hours, and I figured it would give you a good 2.5 hours of endurance.

I hadn't even realized how much fun I was actually having with him—talking about something as stupid as shoplifting—because his presence made me want to laugh, made me want to talk. Sure, the thick fog that had been surrounding my brain the past few weeks was still abundantly present, but it had lightened up. I had almost forgotten about it.

"Not even a hoodie," I denied, shaking my head and trying to suppress laughter as his shocked face seemed to grow even more shocked—as if his eyebrows could even travel farther up his forehead.

"A t-shirt?"

"No…"

"Not even a fucking pencil?"

"Not really…"

"God dammit, Matthew."

"It's not my fault I'm not a kleptomaniac!" I laughed, throwing a pillow at him. My blanket had long been put into retirement as a barricade, and now had a home casually draped over my shoulders.

"Yes it is," he declared, having caught the pillow and was now hugging it to his chest. "Every sane person has stolen something. People are created to be flawed in that certain character trait." Gilbert seemed genuinely intrigued by my innocence, and it seemed almost ironic how my thoughts of him from then were anything but.

"What character trait?"

"Selfishness," he answered bluntly—honestly.

"Well, what have you stolen?" I turned the attention on the subject to him. The tea sat unfinished on the table beside the couch, and I turned the cup as I awaited his answer.

"Gosh, what _haven't_ I stolen?" he told me with a grin. He leaned forward gradually and I wanted to shrink into the couch, yet mock him at the exact. Same. Time.

He was going to be the death of me.

"Hearts don't count," I stated, settling for both as I nestled even deeper into my couch.

"Damn—then the list shortens."

"Not by a lot…"

"Hey!'' he whined at the admittedly bad comeback.

I looked down at my chest, head leaning down into the arm of the cushioned red couch, but I felt his smile radiate from his being, and I almost want to run upstairs and finish the painting right at that very moment.

I was tired, no doubt about it, but I didn't want to send Gilbert home. I didn't want our rocket-fire conversation to end, and I just wanted to talk to him until midnight before I turned into a hideous pumpkin and he remembered that Princes had far better things to do than talk to pumpkins.

I wasn't transformed yet—I still had a long way to go.

"It's four in the afternoon, huh…" He glanced at his watch when I finally turned over to him, a look of surprise plastered on his face along with what I really hoped was genuine hesitance.

"Time sure flies…"

"You better be there tomorrow, Matthew Williams, or so help me, I will show up here and drag you to an education myself." Then he was up and putting on his backpack. I noticed that he had stopped wearing his leather jacket as the temperature got warmer, and was momentarily distracted by his bare arms before smiling as he winked at me while walking backward toward the door.

"Oh by the way," he added shortly, pausing.

He turned back to my direction with a smile brighter than I had ever seen, brighter than the brightest firework or star or sun.

"Liz thought the painting was awesome—she's asked to give her compliments to the artist."

"Thanks."

When the door closed shut and my eyes hung onto his retreating figure through the glass, I realized something.

I had gotten really good at wearing terribly fake smiles. I could feel my mask go back on, the mask of a happy, if not simply content, boy.

And it hid my hideous face with ease.

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.

.

~Wow. I know I speak for all writers when I say that sometimes chapters are excruciatingly painful to write- whether it's because of a sad scene, or because you can't seem to write for shit.

This week, it's been the second one.

I'm actually really nervous about posting this chapter… I know it's not my best work, and my beta definitely let me know how she felt about it… but I really just also think I'm being a bit harsh on myself. I hope I am- and that my writing isn't as bad as I think it is for this chapter, but I guess I'll know with the reviews or feedback, hopefully.

When facing an eating disorder, symptoms and side-effects can vary, from thinking of food 24-7, to mood changes and mood swings, to considerably high apathy towards once passionate subjects. They're lil shits, eating disorders are, and they make you do some pretty crazy stuff.

If you or a friends suffer from self-harm, self-injury, anorexia, bulimia, or BED- please tell someone, get help, or get sanctuary. They're killers.

I'm grateful for the audience my little story has, and I'm very very encouraged by you sweet messages and reviews, thank you so much!

-Keyboardmurderer~


	5. Chapter 5

There's a huge difference between potential and talent.

Sure, they may be branches from the same tree, but both are necessary for advancement. Success.

Talent can come to anyone, at any time. Talent isn't something you can choose to have, or gain comfortably. Those with certain minds and specialties tend to have certain talents.

Potential is completely dependent on you. Your personality. Your will—ambition.

Sometimes, people don't realize their potential—their potential as musicians, dancers, artists, poets. They never realize their skill and their ability to make beautiful things.

Gilbert was a lot like that, and though he undoubtfully held enough talent to fill an ocean and enough potential to sail a boat on the waters, he seemed not to be able to realize that.

In the past month, we had gone from acquaintances to inseparable, and Alfred had noticed, making passive aggressive comments about the two of us. It was obvious he didn't like Gilbert; he would immediately go up to his room or make his way down to the basement as soon as he heard the doorbell.

But I didn't care. I had learned all of Gilbert's quirks and habits almost immediately—like how he twirled his pen or pencil between his fingertips when he concentrated and how he sometimes gnawed on the end of his eraser when he saw something he didn't like in his lines. And boy, was it frustrating to watch as he would tear dramatically at the long pages of his sketch pad, crushing them angrily then clumsily throwing them, half-crumbled, into the large tin trash can of the room.

I was slowly revealing my faults and rough edges to him as well: emerging slowly from the safe haven of my shadow.

He sat across from me—felt-tip pen in his nimble fingers, cap in his mouth—eying his newest line of material intensely.

I don't know how I knew, but it was obvious he was unhappy with something.

"What's wrong?" I inquired, with fear that if I didn't break the silence he would tear the thin paper to shreds. Again.

"It's unproportional," he said, not missing a single beat in the rhythm that made up our conversations. His eyes darted around the large sheaf of paper, red plashing from one angle to another, and where his eyes wandered his pen hovered only to be brought back again in fear of ruining something else.

"I made Irene too small in the third panel—she's almost half the size of Gavin. Fuck…" I could see the frustration in his eyes like the brightness of the hottest white at the pit of a fire. I knew the frustration well and had suffered through it countless times on my portrait of him. Sometimes artists were their own toughest critics.

I stood from my small metal stool and made my way across the table to his. I let myself take in the tiny panel of Gilbert's own personal project—a small idea for a comic he'd conceived some time months ago centered around an awkward young teenager, Gavin, and his energetic, quirky, and dynamic grandmother, Irene—who takes Gavin in after his parents refuse to support a homosexual son.

Gavin naturally slouched in the standard anatomical studies I had seen Gilbert do, so I saw no difference in the size of Irene, who in the third panel was slouching as well, one hand on her obnoxiously round glasses, the other slapping her grandson on the shoulder.

"It's not off at all," I hedged, leaning in closer. "Maybe you've been looking at it for too long."

"Of _course_ it's fucking off," he hissed. The venom in Gilbert's voice threw me off completely. Was he that upset for shrinking Irene by a few inches? The sharp edge in his voice made me feel as crestfallen and hurt as if I had been hit with an actual physical wound.

I tried to calm down.

"Gilbert, you're… being too critical of yourself," I said slowly, giving him an understanding smile. Slowly but surely, I was becoming less and less frightened of him—in the sense that little by little, I was emerging from the darkness so that he could see me in the light. He knew, most definitely, that I was timid in his shadow. But less timid I was growing.

Or, at least, I thought that was the case.

"Stop sugar coating it! Just finish whatever the hell you were doing before you came to bother me."

I almost jerked away from the sheer hurt of the words digging into my skin, but held in place and calmly backed off. He didn't notice, his eyes still trained on the image before him.

The thing about people you know you shouldn't have feelings for is that you don't ever want to give anything away—not even for a second—that what they say affects you.

I didn't want him to see the blades going into my skin that night, and I sure as hell didn't want him to see that I wanted both to sob uncontrollably and kick his scrunched down eyebrows into his skull. I was sinking back into the isolation of darkness. It was safer here, probably. He could no longer touch me, I decided then and there, and I would never again be burned by that sheer brightness.

He couldn't hurt me anymore, be it with his girlfriend or his kindness or even just his touch. Because—he was done. I was done. I wanted to be done, anyway.

If only it was that simple, though.

The mask went on. I shut my laptop, the line art of my recent doodle only half complete, messy lines plaguing the page, and packed the tablet and its pen. Then I fled from that room like it was burning.

I had been playing myself _for_ Gilbert this entire time. That much I knew. Inclination was a messy, messy thing.

I also knew that I wanted nothing more than to just shut down. Nothing had been going right for so long. Both of my parents obviously loved Alfred more, and if not, they sure as hell had reason to. He at least was worth something. I was worth just as much as my best art piece—but they were all just different forms of the same shit for people with different preferences in shit.

I was worthless. And I had never realized it until now.

My mind, finally, seemed to be consumed in the fog that made up my thoughts. I heard my feet beating rhythmically on the tiles of the hallway, but where was I even walking to? I stopped in front of the big central staircase, hundreds of steps away from the art room. Away from Gilbert.

That was a good first step.

I climbed the stairs heaving at each metal step, the incline seemingly growing with every passing step upwards, but when I reached the top I kept walking, down through the corridors and to the door that lead to the roof.

My head protested, my brain feeling like it was flinging itself around my skull, nausea hitting me and coming back for a second round, third, fourth.

But I climbed the stairs up as if I was on autopilot, feeling everything from the tight pulling of my thigh muscles to the faint desire to just tumble backwards, not able to even see any reason towards my actions.

"_What have I eaten today?"_ I thought absently to myself as I ran my ringers through my wheat-like hair, feeling a tug at my scalp and bringing back my hand to see loose strands.

Nothing… I had eaten nothing.

The outside air hit me like a fan blowing hot air. I seemed to have arrived at my apparent destination.

Mechanically, I took off my hoodie- throwing it to the side of the well-kept, practically spotless cement roof. I walked all the way to the ledge and found myself finally coming back into command as I sat on the concrete indentation.

Really—what was I worth?

My grades were on point, yes, but deep down I knew that all of the recent studying had been to stop myself from eating out of boredom.

My parents were never even home. Why had they even married if they never got to see each other? My mind was not only fogged, but the mist seemed to encase my mind like a strait-jacket.

My scars were just screams no one would ever hear. They were numb, vibrating uncomfortably at both sides of my hips.

No, they were buzzing.

I pulled out my phone from the pocket of my jeans, still buzzing with every new incoming message.

[ Gilbert: Hey—where r u? ]

Seriously. Fuck him.

[ Gilbert: Matt, I'm sorry. I've been dealing with a lot of shit lately. ]

_So have I, asshole, _I responded in my head as I let the messages come.

[ Gilbert: I've been a shit person lately. I mean, Eliza broke things off—met another dude at a music camp… And I know it's no excuse but I'm sorry. ]

[ Gilbert: Please answer me. ]

[ Gilbert: Matt, I know you're not okay. Please respond. ]

I couldn't feel sorry for him. I felt selfish—hurt—that he chose to take it out on me.

He even knew I wasn't okay—he'd admitted it to me himself.

The day wasn't even half over, but I could afford to miss my last classes. My grades were high and no one paid attention to me anyway, and they never took attendance for the last half of the day.

I just wanted to stay put, ignoring everything around me, ignoring Gilbert.

I didn't have the energy to move anyway.

.

.

.

Alfred found me around seventh period.

"Mattie, what the _fuck._" Unsurprisingly, Arthur trailed right behind him, a look of worry pressed into his solemn face. But it was nothing compared to Alfred's pinched, flustered, and vaguely outraged expression.

"I didn't see you in the Art room—or lunch. Or the library. _Why_ are you out _here?"_ Alfred pressed a hand into his scalp and carded his hair back. It must've been hot on top of the roof, but I could feel nothing but chills running down the line of my spine, in the tips of my fingernails, in the smallness of the edge of my toes.

I noticed, for the first time in what might have been hours, that I was shivering in boiling hot weather.

Alfred noticed too.

He took my hoodie from Arthur and pulled me up from my corner. I felt as if I was a soul leaving my body with how faint and weak I felt.

Not fun.

He didn't even bother pulling my arms through the sleeves of my hoodie- he just threw it on top of me, zipped it up (I never noticed how big it had gotten), and pulled me down the stairs.

Next thing I knew, I was in the nurse's office.

I turned my head, still fuzzy and hurting quite a lot, to look into the stern eyes of our school nurse.

Though I had known for a fact that our school nurse, who I had visited on occasion due to random acts of clumsiness or the occasional migraine, was a very kind man, his expression seemed rather uncharacteristically strict and hard. Nurse Tino (or Tino, as he liked those who visited enough to call him), in fact, looked at me with such distress and stoicism that you could mistake him for his husband.

"Your brother brought you to me unconscious."

"I… I didn't know I had lost consciousness."

Slowly, tears began to form in his pale blue eyes, and though he was much shorter than many of the students, he obviously knew how to use his authority.

"What are you doing, Matthew? Last time I saw you, you were perfectly healthy."

"I am perfectly healthy, still." I wouldn't budge, I told myself. I crossed my arms and sat up, almost level with our tiny nurse.

"Please," His strong stance slowly decomposed, as he opened his palms towards me, pleadingly. "Is something wrong? I know you don't come in here often, and I know you don't know me as anything but a nurse, but…"

"I'm. Fine." I would have done anything not to see the hurt in his eyes. I knew Tino very, very little, but one thing was certain: he absorbed the pain of others.

It seemed almost ironic, considering his work.

The small Finnish man stared, and I exchanged an even harder glance, until he finally walked away.

My head pounded into each different corner of my skull, bashing to its own unrhythmic melody. I brought myself to look at the clock above the medicine counter.

1:25 P.M.

It was a Friday, I recalled, and the day was almost over. But I wanted nothing more than to simply be in my bed: no treadmill, no restricting, no feeling. I just wanted to forget that I was a living, breathing human _being_ for the weekend.

I was brought out of my self-loathing, vegetative state by the office door furiously flying open.

A fuming albino stormed in.

He stalked his way towards me—but I was frozen, in shock and in mirroring anger. Why the _heck_ wouldn't he just _leave me alone?_

I watched as Tino stepped in front of him, though, much like a mouse fending off a famished tiger, and put a hand on his chest.

They talked rapidly, and in hushed voices I could hear their fast whispers. It seemed like moments before Tino brought down his hand lethargically, and stepped out of Gilbert's way.

He walked calmer now.

"I'm taking you home. I talked to your brother. Let's go."

My response was immediate: "I don't want to go with you." I knew I was acting like a child- hell, even sounding like one- but it seemed like every demon taking hold of my mind wanted nothing but for me to stay rooted to the small blue cot.

Gilbert was stronger, though, than my demons.

I fought his piercing gaze, violet colliding with red, until it seemed like I would fall backwards and pass out again if I didn't blink.

"Let's. Go." He didn't wait a second until my defeat, and turned out into the hallway.

I followed.

.

.

.

Not even since the first time I entered Gilbert's car, the first time of many, did I feel so awkward. I tried to keep my gaze forward, but looked often to see where his gaze lay.

He looked straight ahead.

It went on like this for what seemed like eons: sheer silence—uncomfortable silence, like that in a horror film. The suspenseful music had subsided, and for a moment there would be no sound. …A trick to make one think that the protagonist was safe.

It was the silence right before the brutal death.

"You don't know what you're up against."

At first, I didn't even register that Gilbert, in his anger, had spoken to me. He had been so quiet.

It was foreign to me, too: that someone usually so dynamic could sound like nothing but an echo.

I shifted in my seat, not liking the way the plush finishing dug into my hips like steel instead of cushioning.

Gilbert growled. "You're going to lose, Matthew. You're going to lose everything in this fight. You're going to wake up one day, so lost in your own sadness that you're going to forget for a moment that there are people who _love_ you. That one moment can be enough, Matthew, to drive you completely mad."

The stop light in front of us turned green, and instead of continuing to my house, Gilbert swerved dramatically to the left, parking sloppily at a parking space in the nearest lot.

Angrily, he twisted around to look at me. "Do you know what you're doing to yourself? Do you know how dangerously close you are to _losing_ this fucking game? You're starving to death, and I'm _watching_ _you do it!"_

His voice rose with every word, and I could see the control leaving his eyes with every rising octave. But I was losing control too—I had lost it long ago, long before I'd even let myself get this far.

"Y-You don't even know what the fuck I'm going through. You don't know me! You don't know my life or my choices! Why are you acting like you even care?!" My voice scratched as it left my throat, and somewhere in the back of my head I realized, distantly, that I was close to crying. I was broken—screaming at him at the top of my lungs. No longer was I in the shadows, but I had pounced out from them, and attacked my pursuer.

The fury and frustration burned in the back of my eyes and I hated it—I hated the fact that he could make me feel this way.

I took another breath, a shallow gasp of air before I went under again, and fisted my loose jeans. "You said it yourself!"

"Matt—"

"I'm _bothering_ you!"

The silence filled the car again, and I struggled to breathe with each passing second. I hated this; I hated _him_.

"Matthew," he began, still reeling from my last words. But he steeled himself and pressed forward. "I know people who've been like you. I know people who've taken their own fucking lives because of what's in their head. And, and I'm not going to tell you that it gets better—you wanna know why? Because it doesn't always. People have to go through a lot of _scheiße_ in their lives—lots of it, sometimes it's all there is—and I'm _not_ a fucking fortune teller."

Here the tears finally came free, and I tried my best to hide it. I brought my hands up to my face, only to have them torn down by Gilbert's dry, cold hands. They were shaking a little.

"I'm not saying this to you because I hate you. I'm not giving you tough love. I just want you to know that people survive out there by not letting fuckers get to them." Slowly his German accent whittled its way into the speech. Slowly he was getting closer and closer to me, his face, twisted and ugly with anger, now so close to mine.

"Get. Better. You have literally no other fucking choice. There are no other options for you—and you can think you want to die now, but in a year, when you're sucking slaying it in school, when you're recognized for your artwork, when you have so many amazing opportunities, when you're actually _living_… You're going to thank me for being a bastard to you. You're going to _thank_ me for yelling at you today, and you're going to hate what you've done to yourself."

I wasn't breathing right; my breaths came in short, uneven lengths, and as he continued to stare at me, I became even more distressed at how I must have looked to him.

Gilbert waited, though. He waited for me to calm down, and when my breaths were close to normal again and when I could see out of the wateriness of my eyes, he got out of his car, turned into the nearest restaurant in the strip mall we were apparently parked in, and came back exactly thirteen minutes later with a plate of pizza.

My breaths shortened again as he stepped into the car and thrust the plate at me.

"Eat."

I silently begged him not to do it—but his eyes remained hard and determined until I finally grabbed the first giant slice of greasy, gooey cheese pizza and tore off the crust.

"Don't count the bites. I'm counting them for you. Finish the pizza." His voice was jagged and sharp—and I felt like I had broken him. He had lost to me, and no longer was I the one he talked to of his own will, or the one he sought out in a crowd. In truth, I was slowly starting to feel special to Gilbert.

I was sick now, and he didn't want to deal with it.

I chewed, keeping my eyes on the runny cheese of the pizza instead of counting the bites. Instead of looking at Gilbert.

We must have stayed there for over fifteen minutes, me slowly eating the two slices of pure fat, Gilbert silently waiting for me to finish.

Halfway through the second slice, I spoke.

"You didn't tell me Elizaveta broke things off."

"That's not important now. Eat."

"It _is_ important. I would have left you alone. I wouldn't have bothered you about Irene and her anatomy if I'd known you were just sad. I-I'm sorry! I didn't know—"

"It was mutual."

He stared out of his window, right hand on the wheel, left in his lap. Once again, silence blanketed the car with tension.

It felt so hard to breathe, then and there. "…I'm sorry," I said, lost.

"Don't be," He finally looked back to me, but his eyes remained hard and concentrated. "We both agreed that there were other people."

I looked down at the plate, not yet pizza-free, and said nothing. I didn't even want to know who the fuck his "other person" was. I wanted to go home—I had an hour and a half before Alfred even got on the bus anyway.

"Please take me home."

I held my breath as he slowly exited the parking lot, making the rest of the way to the house he had come to know well.

As soon as we arrived, I exited his car as fast as I could, and thrust my already ready key into the lock. Hearing his footsteps follow behind me send a surge of fear through my heart, and I frantically tried to turn it, succeeding only when Gilbert was right behind me.

The door opened only at the force of his body on mine.

.

.

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~The end.

I'm kidding.

I TRIED TO WRITE WELL I REALLY DID I TRIED I TRIED I TRIED. I have received a bunch of messages from you hooligans to update and I barely slept last night from not being able to get GILBERT'S LINES RIGHT.

It was a frustrating experience, but aye- it's Gilbert. I luv him anyway.

AUGH YOU GUYS ARE MAKING ME BLUSH WITH ALL THE SWEET REVIEWS?! Literally not one of you have said a negative thing about the story, and I'm amazed at the positive feedback. What really, truly surprised me is the number of people who have listened to my disclaimers, and who have come to me for advice.

I had no idea how many of you go through these painful disorders and periods- I'm so sorry.

This actually brings me to the topic of triggers- if this story triggers you, angers you, or in any way makes you feel as if you are going to hurt yourself- please please _please_ stop reading it, or get a trusted friend or family member to calm you down if you have already been triggered. I really do not want people hurting themselves, falling back into bad habits, because of a story I'm writing. I also do not want to discontinue said story.

Being completely honest with you guys, I might be MIA for a week or so, because I will be in New York with my mother and sister- so if I do not respond to a review or message don't be alarmed or upset, I'll try my best to get back to anyone who messages me ASAP!

If you or someone you know suffer from an eating disorder, body dysmorphia, depression, or cutting- and you need someone to talk to, vent to, or ask for advice- I'm right here. I've been there done that, and if I can't help, chances are I know someone who can. Don't let something like this go unattended, or untreated. These diseases are killers.

Thank you all once again for reading, and if you have something to say/ a question to ask you can ALSO find me on my tumblr .com

I know I'm lame.

Love (MUAH)

-Keyboardmurderer


	6. Chapter 6

Wanting to die is a paradox in its own sense.

There are a lot of different reasons a person could die in name of, varying from mental dissatisfaction to believing one deserves better than what had been given to them. Suicide, or even the desire to commit suicide, can be selfish for one and a complete last resort for another.

For me, it's feeling so uncomfortable in your own body that you scratch your skin until it rips, hoping your soul will somehow maybe escape in the small red voids. It's not an emotion on its own—more like millions of different, crippling thoughts running through your head at the same time, expanding the skull and squishing the brain like a supposed "one-size-fits-all" blanket.

Wanting to die is like giving birth to the inevitable mental death that sometimes follows after.

Deciding to die is different for everyone, but for me, it was lying on the white tile floor below an ice cold shower. Even if I didn't physically kill myself, my mind would have just decided against function anyway. The demons in my head had finally quieted down, something many would figure good, but being left alone with a self-destructive, pessimistic mind—_my_ mind—was the ultimate death of me.

The scalding water had long stopped burning my skin, and the sound of each drop falling was white noise as I watched the small translucent bulbs trickle down my splattered, wet hair.

_It's no use. Why is there even an attempt being made? I'm worthless._

I fully believe that if Alfred hadn't suspected something and walked into his brother lying on a hard tile shower floor, I would have, without a doubt, ended my own life that day.

Though I knew I would have done it, I can honestly say I don't know how it would have played out; maybe I would have taken a handful or two of NiQuil, or split the veins on my wrists open in a final attempt to save my own damned soul from the hell of my own vessel. I never really thought about how it would have been done, more that it would have happened indefinitely anyway.

Alfred surprisingly didn't even acknowledge the fact that I was completely naked in the shower—something I would have expected him to do, even considering the circumstances.

"Mattie, what the actual fuck?!" His exclamation came out more like a statement than a question, but nevertheless he grabbed me by my hip and shoulder and got me more-or-less standing, not even bothering to clothe me. He pulled me into the dry bathtub a few feet away.

In the few years I had known Alfred, he had pretty much completely invaded my privacy, my personal space, and my mind. I was reluctant about caring for someone else, to be completely frank; but he seemed to mean well, and I guess he just gradually became relevant.

I didn't think the same went for me.

We sat in silence, but the tension was like a never-ending death-metal scream, the bridge to an intense song with no harmony in sight.

After what seemed like an eternity crammed into minutes, Alfred finally seemed to calm his panting.

"You," he breathed heavily, like a weight on his chest was sluggishly being relieved in small amounts at a time. "You have been making me shit myself worrying about you since fucking Febuary."

I don't even flinch as he banged his hand on the ceramic tub, angry that I didn't respond.

"I might not be your brother by blood, but I love you as much as a brother damn-well should. You've been so quiet—don't think I don't notice how little you fucking eat—and your ribs are stretching your skin, and I feel like shit knowing I didn't say anything or do anything sooner. I'm so fucking sorry, Matthew. God, I'm _sorry_. I don't think I've ever been so fucking _pissed off_ at myself—but need to know what's happening so that I can do something about it."

He sounded so mad. Alfred was one of those people that when they get really mad, their voice gets quieter, and they talk lower, slower. Simmering beneath the surface.

I had been worrying him—worrying him and Gilbert and making a fucking scene in front of the few friends I probably had. And I was worthless, drawing attention to myself, even when it was the last thing on my to-do list.

I think Alfred broke into actual tears the moment I curled into myself.

I'm still not sure today if he was actually crying. I was still wet, so I may have been imagining the dampness on my shoulder when he tried to wrap his arms around me. But everything hurt. I couldn't sit anywhere, much less lie down, for more than five minutes because my tender skin would press into bone.

I probably looked even more pitiful than I felt, all wrapped up in myself with purple and green blotches of bruised skin exposed in the eerie bright white of the bathroom lights. Alfred tried to shield me from it, wrapping his arms around me tighter and tighter, maybe hoping to engulf me completely.

That night, Alfred slept in my room.

"I'm not leaving you alone until you tell me what I can do." Alfred had never gone longer than maybe forty-five minutes without laughter—at least not around me. It was unsettling, but hey, now we were even in the art of freaking each other out.

Maybe it was the fact that Alfred refused to go to sleep before I did, or that he had brought over the bed spread from his room, and the bed was extremely cushioned, but I fell into slumber faster than I had since this entire "diet" started.

And because of the pizza still stubbornly sitting in my stomach, I didn't wake up hungry until later in the morning.

.

.

.

Alfred didn't leave my bed until I woke up.

"You're eating a normal breakfast. I'm going to make pancakes. Get dressed." The sadness was still scattered in his eyes, but his voice was light now—careful.

He stayed until I could leave with him down the stairs, fully clothed.

Nothing could be compared to the unimaginable discomfort that plagued the short walk from upstairs to the kitchen. For the first time, not paying much attention to the worried stares and comments from the few friends I could call my own, I was aware of the emancipated state of my body.

I was hollow, and it had taken me this long to realize it.

The gray sweatpants that covered my trembling legs hung off of my waist, supported only by the elastic bottom of my hoodie which wrapped around me like a safety shell: big and engulfing around the shoulders. Had it always been like this?

What they forget to tell you about simply "eating" is that it's not always a positive slope upwards. You can see the actual changes in your body if you're lucky enough, but even with the drive to change, it can take all of you—every ounce of your actual being—to make yourself eat.

What they also don't tell you is that some people won't know how to handle the situation.

I honest to God thought that this would apply to Alfred.

But he stayed silent, avoiding eye contact and keeping his eyes from wandering to my plate. In fact, it kinda started to scare me how hard he was staring at his pancakes.

I cut into mine lethargically, watching the smoke rise from the small triangle on the tip of my fork. I had noticed, as Alfred finished off the final (and sloppily, perhaps frantically made) pancakes, that he had piled the same amount on each plate; four large cakes.

He cut into his just as I lifted the fork to my mouth.

I wanted to keep my eyes on my step-brother, but the sweetness in my mouth completely entranced me, and I found it hard to focus on anything but the taste in my mouth. It was sweet—sweet sweet sweet _sweet, _and I felt….

Guilty.

Logically, there was no way that a few square inches of pancake would make me balloon- but as soon as the softness of the first bite went down my throat, I just wanted to chuck my fork across the kitchen table.

I did not, though. And Alfred stayed with me, eating in the same pattern as me, for forty minutes.

.

.

.

Alfred didn't leave the house that day, and he didn't let me leave his sight for more than ten minutes.

We sat in the living room, half-listening to whatever reality TV show was on at the moment.

What never ceased to amaze me about Alfred was his persistence; he hadn't given up on Arthur until the poor guy cracked and agreed to a date, and he had studied like a mad man for the months before the college entry exams. Alfred wasn't your average dumb jock, either- he worked his ass off for his rank in school as well as on the fields.

Alfred was simply stubborn—but it was the best kind of stubborn to be.

Even in the obvious awkwardness that cloaked the room, Alfred sat glued to his seat. It was discomforting, yeah, but it also helped me realize something I should have probably known from the day before when he was mad and upset about me not telling him what had happened.

Alfred really, genuinely cared about me. Maybe more than I think I deserved.

.

.

.

Gilbert didn't try to contact me that entire weekend.

When both Alfred and I had decided to stay home the Monday following ("Mental health is just as fucking important as your GPA, Mattie."), he didn't call or text to ask why.

When I went back Tuesday with noticeably gray skin and clothing that I should have known didn't fit me anymore, he didn't appear in the halls.

I was actually starting to get worried—maybe he had transferred out himself, or gotten sick—when I finally turned into the art room after lunch, and my eyes settled upon a concentrated storyboard artist.

Seeing as he didn't see me, I made no move to greet him until he finally looked up, and straight into my eyes.

Then proceeded to get back to his work.

The pathetic thing was, I was actually getting used to the disappointment now, and took the sting with ease, sitting down at my own stool and pulling out my tablet and pen.

No, scratch that; the pathetic thing was that I was _still_ working on that stupid picture of him.

I worked in silence for half of my free period, not daring to look at Gilbert the entire time but feeling the creep of his eyes on me. My train of thought would not be lost, I decided, until Yao pretty much screamed out my name when he saw me through the opened door of the art room on his way to the restroom.

"Matthew! What the—" His heavily accented English was interrupted by a streak of rushed Mandarin. I was startled when he sped into the room and smacked my head lightly, muttering many "Ai-yah's" and words I probably didn't want to know the translations to.

"Where have you been? I try to contact you—you deaf? Not hear my phone calls?!"

"I was sick…" I faced him, probably with an expression only to be matched with annoyance. I felt a pang of guilt when his face softened. "I'm sorry, I couldn't really be bothered."

"Are you okay now?"

"Kinda."

"Okay…" I noticed how when he was calm, Yao's accent wasn't as noticeable as when he wanted to hit you over the head with whatever was in his hands.

I had forgotten that Gilbert's portrait was still opened on Photoshop until Yao looked over and his eyes lit up.

"That's amazing! Is it for him?" He asked, pointing over to Gilbert, who snapped into attention (as if he wasn't paying any to begin with) at the mention of him.

It was probably pretty difficult to discount the glare I was giving Yao, but he quickly attempted to change the subject as soon as he understood his destitute question.

"You've gotten better, yeah? Good for you, Matthew! I'm going to go back to class. Have a good day, yeah? Yeah!" I watched the flustered and confused man walk out of the room faster than he had walked in after seeing me.

I dared not lift my head as I heard Yao's footsteps dissolve into the hallways. Slowly, from the corner of my eye, I watched Gilbert get up from his spot—setting his felt tip pen on the inclined board—and make his way in front of me, sitting right there before my seat.

I stayed completely still as he motioned to turn my laptop, then closed my eyes as he continued to shift it towards himself.

.

.

.

~Wow. I'm a loser. I understand if you all hate me. I hate me too.

This chapter actually ended up very, very short for the amount of time I took on it; I've been struggling with a lot of personal conflict lately, so I'm sorry If I don't update every week, every other week, etc.

I've been thinking a lot about this story! The path and storyline are slowly revealing themselves in my mind, and my love for the characters grows with every word. I understand Matthew's point of view, and as much as I would love to have an albino in shining armor save me from my own mind, that's not how it actually works, a lot of the time; I want to write Matthew not as someone who is saved, but as someone who saves himself (with some help, of course; realistically it's near impossible to recover mentally alone)

But again; sorry for the late update- personal shit's the worst, huh?

If you or a friend suffers from a mental disorder, self-injury in any way, or self-destructive behavior, feel free to message me privately; or contact me on Tumblr as .com

Lots of gratitude for the sweet messages and reviews; you guys are an amazing group of followers

~Keyboardmurderer


	7. Chapter 7

It's 1:28 A.M. when I realize I am in love with you.

My head is doing that thing with your name,

where words don't seem like words anymore after you look at them for a while.

The only sounds that accompany me are the soft hum of the ceiling fan, and my syncopated heartbeat;

Each hushed pump plays in three beats time- like a waltz;

One two three, one two three, oh my god, oh my god.

My lights stay off, my fan still hums, and I stay in bed until my finger grows tired,

Of scrolling through our conversations.

"I've been thinking," I say to a friend the following morning.

"That's dangerous," she retaliates, humor lacing her words.

All I can think about is how right she is.

I am taken aback by how easy it is,

To remain by your side and part of your day.

Smiling even seems to come with facility,

But then at 1:28 A.M., tears drip down the sides of my face as I lay in bed,

And I listen to the sound of my waltzing heart;

One two three, one two three, make it stop, make it stop.

I've grown accustomed to the familar sensation,

of your teeth slowly sinking deeper into my chest,

and I realize I have mastered the art of dying in silence.

I can only fall asleep after accepting that my laugh doesn't light up your eyes,

and my words of affection don't make your chest leap in one two three, one two three,

Love me back, love me back.

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.

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GUESS WHO'S BACK

I have been dealing with a lot of things throughout these past two years- anorexia and bulimia being a huge part of my absence from this fic. I hope I can make up for lost time in the next few months- I'm graduating in early June, so I should be able to focus on this piece and various others that I haven't even had the opportunity to POST on here!

Thank you for reading this story- every time I see a notification in my email that doesn't have to do with college or scholarships, I get a little giddy.

Expect a REAL update within the next few weeks; this is a poem I wrote recently that I feel like Matthew would have resonated with. I actually thought about him earlier today while editing it for a scholarship. I wanted to let you guys know I HAVEN'T abandoned this fic, and I just couldn't wait until I had another two thousand words out LMAO.

Anorexia, Bulimia, and every eating disorder in between is a serious threat to an individual's mental health. If you or a friend is struggling with an ED, feel free to message me here or on my tumblr: .com


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